New Palo Alto

New Palo Alto startups raised $6.6B in 2014 and $31.7B in 2025, close to five times as much. The 2021 peak of $52.6B still stands above every year since. The first half of 2026 brought in $23.3B, which annualises to $46.7B, 47% above 2025. That last bar is the projection, not a closed year.

Annual totals hide the quarter-by-quarter path. Each bar is one closed quarter, from Q1 2014 to Q2 2026, with no projection and no partial quarter. No quarter before 2019 passed $4B. Q1 2022 remains the peak at $17.8B, and Q2 2026, at $12B, was the strongest quarter since Q2 2022.

New Palo Alto took 49.9% of European VC funding in 2016 and 50.3% so far in 2026. Greater London alone accounts for 29.8% of the continent's funding this year, up from 26.4% in 2016, and the Paris region for 8.9%. Each bar splits the year's European total four ways: Greater London, the Paris region, the rest of New Palo Alto, and the rest of Europe.

How capital deployed into New Palo Alto startups is split across round sizes. In the trailing four quarters, 61% of capital landed in scaleup ($100M+) rounds, 27% in breakout ($15–100M), and 13% across startups (under $15M). Each panel below stacks the canonical sub-bands by year, from 2014 to the first half of 2026. Rounds of $250M and up were 21% of the total in 2014 and 47% in the first half of 2026.

The most active investors in New Palo Alto startups ranked by the number of disclosed rounds they've participated in. Bpifrance leads with 803 rounds, followed by SFC Capital at 548. The table shows the top ten with their firm type, in-scope round count, total portfolio size, and headquarters.

Two views of leadership in New Palo Alto startups: the most-funded companies all-time on the left, and the hottest companies right now by Dealroom Signal on the right. Total-funding figures include all capital sources tracked by Dealroom (VC plus grants, project finance, and other instruments). Signal is Dealroom's live growth ranking, these are the firms with the strongest recent momentum across team, timing, growth, and completeness.

Over the last 12 months (through Jul 2026), the largest VC rounds in New Palo Alto startups reveal where capital is consolidating. The table below lists the 15 biggest disclosed rounds by amount, with date, company, round type, and lead investors. Funding events without a public amount are excluded; acquisitions sit in the Unicorns & Exits section.

New Palo Alto startups have minted 313 unicorns to date. Dealroom defines a unicorn as a company that has reached a $1B+ valuation or exit (verified and manually reviewed; other lists use different criteria, this is ours). Of those, 19 are decacorns, companies at a $10B+ valuation. The ecosystem also counts 377 thoroughbreds: companies generating $100M+ in revenue (a separate lens from unicorns, with some overlap). The chart below shows the cumulative count climbing each year, with the line tracking new unicorns minted in that year, peaking at 65 in 2021. On exits, the sector has produced 2,900 tracked acquisitions since 2010 representing $219.3B in disclosed value. Notable acquisitions in the data include Verona Pharma ($10.0B, 2025), followed by Interxion ($8.4B, 2019), Just Eat Takeaway.com | Takeaway.com ($8.4B, 2020).

Cumulative unicorns and $1B+ exits, or combined ecosystem enterprise value, for every VC-backed company founded since 1990. Stacked by metro since 2015. Switch the metric, the grouping and whether a company counts where it is headquartered or where it was founded.

New Palo Alto set against the world's leading tech ecosystems. Switch the metric pills to compare by venture capital (and time period), combined enterprise value, unicorns and $1B+ exits, or companies with $100M+ revenue. New Palo Alto is highlighted.

One bubble per company, sized by current enterprise value and grouped by metro. Counts unicorns and thoroughbreds only; switch to "All VC-backed since 1990" to roll each metro's remaining startups into its total.

Which industries pull in the most venture capital across New Palo Alto startups, and where does the New Palo Alto punch above its weight versus the rest of the world? Use the toggle to switch between absolute VC funding and each industry's over/under-index, and to change the time window. Over the last 12 months (to end of Q2 2026), AI leads at $23.7B, and the New Palo Alto over-indexes in Food, Fintech, Semiconductors, and under-indexes most in Space, Gaming, Security relative to the rest of the world. Industries are tracked through Dealroom's industry tags, which overlap, a company spanning, say, AI and fintech is counted in both, so these show where capital concentrates, not a mutually exclusive split of the total.

New Palo Alto's universities are an engine room of the supercluster: the schools whose alumni found the most unicorns and venture-backed companies, and the research that spins out into them. The supercluster ranks first in the world for university-alumni startups.

The patent portfolio behind New Palo Alto startups: granted patent families, intensity per capita, and where the IP concentrates.

In-depth Dealroom research relevant to this guide.